Tag: Republicans

  • House Republicans Accuse Truman Scholarship of Liberal Bias

    House Republicans Accuse Truman Scholarship of Liberal Bias

    House Republicans held a hearing Wednesday broadcasting long-standing conservative allegations of a left-wing bias in the small, prestigious Truman Scholarship program. Witnesses called by the GOP said the winners disproportionately espouse causes such as promoting racial justice and fighting climate change—and wind up working for Democrats and left-leaning organizations—while few recipients profess interest in conservative aims.

    But rather than counter the allegations, Democrats and their invited witness largely called the proceedings a distraction from the issue of college unaffordability, which they accused the GOP of exacerbating.

    The Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development hearing reflected a trend in conservative criticism of higher ed: allegations of favoritism toward liberals and left-leaning thought within very exclusive programs, including certain Ivy League institutions. The Trump administration’s sweeping research funding cuts for particular universities—and the congressional grillings of university presidents during antisemitism hearings before Trump retook the White House—have targeted institutions that only a fraction of Americans attend.

    “The Truman Scholarship represents an appropriation of $3 million a year, and directly impacts just 50 to 60 students annually,” said Democratic witness Ashley Harrington, senior policy counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “The cuts to the higher education safety net made in the One Big Beautiful Bill are of far greater consequence to the millions of Americans who have never even heard of the Truman Scholarship.”

    “I hope today’s conversation can shift toward making our entire higher education system more affordable and accessible for all students,” Harrington said, “instead of having a narrow, partisan dialogue about the very few who receive this elite scholarship.”

    Republicans and their witnesses—one from a conservative-leaning media outlet and two from conservative-leaning think tanks—didn’t take her up on that invitation. Jennifer Kabbany, editor in chief of The College Fix, said her outlet has been researching liberal bias in the Truman Scholarship for 10 years and argued that its recipients hold a lot of sway.

    “They’re lobbying, they’re working for lawmakers, they’re consulting, they’re working for very influential, liberal-leaning law firms,” Kabbany said. “And so they’re having a big influence on our nation’s conversation and what legislation is brought forth. This isn’t just a $3 million scholarship—this is the direction of our country.”

    The scholarship, which provides junior undergraduates up to $30,000 for a “public service–related” graduate degree, was founded as a memorial to the namesake Democratic president. Congress passed legislation creating it in 1974, and Republican president Gerald Ford signed the bill into law the next year.

    Lawmakers didn’t invite anyone from the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation to testify. Rep. Burgess Owens, the Utah Republican who chairs the subcommittee, told Inside Higher Ed he didn’t know why no one from the foundation appeared. Audra McGeorge, communications director for the Education and Workforce Committee, said the full committee chooses witnesses.

    “We provided an opportunity for the Truman Scholarship program to respond to the Committee’s concerns” outlined in a letter last year citing a report on the program from the American Enterprise Institute, McGeorge said. “Since they chose not to engage with us on those issues, we did not see a productive path in repeating the outreach. So we sought out researchers who have examined this issue fairly.”

    The minority Democratic party gets to choose only one witness. Raiyana Malone, a spokesperson for the committee’s Democrats, said, “We really wanted to focus on the Big Ugly Bill cuts to higher education,” so they chose Harrington.

    The report from AEI, a conservative-leaning think tank, said that, of the 182 Truman winners between 2021 and 2023, just six espoused interest in a traditionally “conservative-leaning” cause. While numerous winners cited an interest in topics such as immigrants’ rights or racial justice, none professed interest in protecting the rights of the unborn or defending the Second Amendment, the report said.

    Frederick Hess, AEI’s director of education policy studies and co-author of the report, said the Truman Foundation began hiding past news releases and reduced the amount of biographical information on its website to prevent the replication of such studies. In an email, Tara Yglesias, the foundation’s deputy executive secretary, said its 2025 scholar listing had returned to a format used in the early 2000s partly because “scholars, particularly those working in national security and similar areas, had made requests that we not post their biographical information publicly. Additionally, significant staff time was required to keep the biographies current, even for the short time they were visible.”

    Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, an Oregon Democrat, criticized the fact that the report’s other author, Joe Pitts, didn’t disclose in the report that he was a failed applicant for the scholarship. Bonamici called Pitts “disgruntled,” which Pitts rebutted on X.

    The scholarship foundation didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview Wednesday or answer some specific emailed questions. Terry Babcock-Lumish, its executive secretary, wrote in an email that while no one from the foundation was invited to testify, “We welcome Members of Congress’s assistance in raising awareness of our opportunity and hope they will encourage the colleges and universities in their districts to nominate qualified candidates.” She said it’s “a merit-based scholarship program committed to identifying aspiring leaders throughout the United States, regardless of ideology.”

    “Unless candidates apply, we cannot select them,” she wrote.

    While the Republican witnesses shared their specific issues with the program’s recruitment and selection process—including not seeking out candidates from traditionally conservative campuses—they and the Republican subcommittee members also traced the alleged liberal bias to the left-leaning nature of academe in general.

    “On the campus level, those that are deciding who gets put to the regional committees, I mean, they’re professors,” said Kabbany, of The College Fix. “And we all know, 30 to one, professors are liberals, so they’re obviously going to advance candidates who have beliefs and pet causes that they love … It’s really systemic.”

    A few Republicans, including Owens, said Congress should end the program.

    “The Truman committee and this entire process is anti-conservative,” Owens said in his closing remarks. He said, “This has been a pipeline for Democrats, no question about it … I don’t think it’s fixable.”

    Rep. Mark Harris, a North Carolina Republican, said, “It’s deeply ironic to me that taxpayers who also never attended college, just like [President] Truman himself, are now forced to fund elite postgraduate degrees for a handpicked few. In my opinion, the federal government has no business running a scholarship program at all.” (According to the Truman Library, Harry S. Truman attended a business college for one year before dropping out to help with his father’s business.)

    Two Republicans—current New York gubernatorial candidate Elise Stefanik and Rep. Randy Fine, a staunchly pro-Israel Florida Republican who has said, “We have a Muslim problem in America”—accused the program of fostering antisemitism. “This, to me, is beyond liberal bias,” Fine said. “This is a flat-out embrace of Muslim terror and [represents] the fact that U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to fund terrorists.”

    Fine, who is Jewish, said, “I have zero desire to reform the Truman fellowship. I’m not interested in borrowing $3 million from my children and grandchildren to give it to people who would like to kill them, so I believe we should shut down the program.” (Fine also made a point to say he wasn’t asking questions of Adam Kissel, a Republican witness, because of Kissel’s connection to the Heritage Foundation, which many conservatives accuse of tolerating antisemitism.)

    Stefanik, who is on the scholarship foundation’s board, cited a 2025 Truman scholar who “publicly espoused support for Hamas,” adding, “We need to address this rise in antisemitism with some of the recipients.”

    Eva Frazier, the Truman recipient whom Stefanik has publicly named in the past, told Inside Higher Ed in an email, “Congresswoman Stefanik’s comments followed a long pattern of politicians attempting to scare students into silence for speaking out about the Palestinian cause, but we refuse to be intimidated by such attacks.”

    Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said the alleged Truman Scholarship issues are “illustrative of so much that goes on.”

    “We’re seeing a bias in opposition to the American idea,” he said. “That isn’t liberal or conservative—it’s American.”

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  • Most Americans Believe in the Effectiveness of Childhood Vaccines — But There’s a Catch – The 74

    Most Americans Believe in the Effectiveness of Childhood Vaccines — But There’s a Catch – The 74


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    This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

    Although a majority of Americans are confident that childhood vaccines are highly effective against serious illness, Republicans’ trust in vaccine safety and support of school requirements is dropping, according to new polling from Pew Research Center.

    Sixty-three percent of Americans are extremely or very confident in the effectiveness of childhood vaccines, according to a survey published Tuesday. But Democrats and those who lean Democrat are much more likely than Republicans and Republican-leaners to hold that view — 80 percent versus 48 percent.

    And while the majority of Americans believe in the safety of vaccines — 53 percent believe childhood vaccines have been tested enough for safety and 51 percent agree that the childhood vaccine schedule is safe — there is significantly more uncertainty among Republicans. For Democrats, 74 percent show high confidence in the safety testing of vaccines and 71 percent believe the childhood vaccine schedule is safe. For Republicans, those numbers are 35 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

    “Both things can be true, that people believe in vaccines’ effectiveness overall and the confidence is a little softer on safety,” said Eileen Yam, director of science and society research at Pew who was part of the primary research team. “But writ large, that’s been pretty stable to see confidence in vaccines. But at the same time, when it comes to things like school requirements, or ‘telling me what to do,’ or requiring me to do something — that’s where you see the bristling on the Republican side.”

    Americans have become more skeptical of requiring that children get the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to attend public school. Sixty-nine percent support it, a decline from 82 percent in 2016. Most of the drop can be attributed to Republicans — with just 52 percent believing in the requirement, compared to 79 percent in 2016. For Democrats, that support was 83 percent in 2016 and actually climbed to 86 percent this year.

    This all comes amid a major measles outbreak in the United States that started in Texas and has spread to multiple other states. And while students are required in each state to get the MMR vaccine to attend public school, officials in Florida have indicated a willingness to drop that requirement.

    Pew found broad and consistent support for the MMR vaccine: 84 percent believe its benefits outweigh its risks (of which there are minor side effects). When Pew first started asking about this in 2016, support was at 88 percent. Yam said the findings show some agreement on the benefits of the MMR vaccine. While 92 percent of Democrats believe the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, 78 percent of Republicans do, too.

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has revamped a key panel that helps decide vaccine policy, has questioned the safety of the MMR vaccine without evidence. He has the backing of President Donald Trump, who has perpetuated misinformation this year about childhood vaccines.

    Pew surveyed parents and found a majority with minor children (57 percent) say they are extremely or very confident in childhood vaccines’ effectiveness. Republican parents are far less likely than Democratic parents to have that confidence (45 percent versus 71 percent), belief in safety testing (29 percent versus 63 percent) and the childhood vaccine schedule (27 percent versus 58 percent).

    Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say medical scientists should have a major role in decisions about childhood vaccines (85 percent vs. 62 percent). There are more partisan fissures on the role of parents: 71 percent of Republicans say that parents of young children should have a major role in policy decisions about childhood vaccines. For Democrats, it’s 46 percent.

    “That speaks to just a divergence in trust in science that we’ve been tracking since before the pandemic,” Yam said. “Just Republicans since the pandemic, their confidence in scientists, the way they look at the CDC has just dropped off much more than on the Democrat side. Democrats have had fairly stable views on scientists and on the CDC, in contrast to Republicans.”

    Pew also examined how recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations have influenced Americans’ decisions around getting a COVID-19 shot. The agency recently agreed with Kennedy’s new vaccine panel to stop recommending the shot to everyone and to instead leave the choice up to people. Forty-four percent say they have heard nothing at all about the CDC’s changes to recommendations. Among those who have heard at least a little, 63 percent say it has had no influence on whether they got an updated vaccine.

    “The one big takeaway there is that policies really can’t influence behaviors if people haven’t heard about the policies or the recommendations,” Yam said. “And in this case, a lot of people haven’t heard about it, and some when they have, their minds were made up. They’ve already kind of decided, and it really didn’t influence their behavior one way or the other.”

    This story was originally published on The 19th.


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  • Republicans Denounce Georgetown Professor for Post on Iran

    Republicans Denounce Georgetown Professor for Post on Iran

    On June 22, the United States bombed Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities. Observers wondered whether it was the start of another lengthy, destructive American war in the Middle East.

    Hours later, a conservative social media account with more than 4.3 million followers highlighted one response—allegedly from a Georgetown University professor. According to a screenshot the Libs of TikTok X account posted, Jonathan Brown, the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization, had written on X, “I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops.”

    Tagging the university’s X account, Libs of TikTok summarized it this way: “Professor at Georgetown University @Georgetown says he hopes Iran strikes a US base.”

    What transpired is becoming a familiar story in U.S. higher education: Conservatives denounce a faculty member’s speech, members of Congress join in and eventually pressure a prestigious university’s president to publicly denounce and punish the scholar.

    In his own June 22 X post, Congressman Randy Fine, a Florida Republican whom Gov. Ron DeSantis previously wanted to lead Florida Atlantic University, noted that Georgetown interim president Robert M. Groves was scheduled to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee, which he did on Tuesday.

    “This demon had better be gone by then,” Fine wrote of Brown. “We have a Muslim problem in America.”

    A June 23 Iranian strike that appeared symbolic did mark the end of the conflict. President Trump said Iran had forewarned the U.S. about the coming attack on a U.S. base in Qatar, allowing Americans to avoid any casualties. But, unlike that fight’s swift end, the battle over Brown’s social media post has dragged on.

    At the House committee’s hearing this week, former committee chair Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, asked Groves about Brown, who works in Georgetown’s respected School of Foreign Service. “Is this person really suited to be educating the next generation of American diplomats?” she said.

    Groves didn’t respond that this was a personnel matter he couldn’t discuss. Like former Columbia University president Minouche Shafik did in front of the same committee last year, he discussed actions the university was taking regarding his employee.

    “Within minutes of our learning of that tweet, the dean contacted Professor Brown, the tweet was removed, we issued a statement condemning the tweet, Professor Brown is no longer chair of his department and he’s on leave, and we’re beginning a process of reviewing the case,” Groves said.

    “You are now investigating and disciplining him?” Foxx asked.

    “Y-yes, Congresswoman,” Groves said.

    He responded differently to a question from another Republican about Georgetown employee Mobashra Tazamal, an associate director of an Islamophobia research project who allegedly reposted a statement that said, “Israel has been recreating Auschwitz in Gaza for two years.” In that case, Groves said he rejected the statement but added, “That’s behavior covered under the First Amendment on social media that we don’t intervene on.”

    ‘Willful Misreading’

    Greg Afinogenov, an associate history professor and president of Georgetown’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said Brown has received “death threats, his family has come under attack and members of the university administration have also criticized him and disavowed him.”

    Afinogenov said the university should clarify that Brown’s post was “protected speech.”

    The university didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview or answer most written questions Thursday. In an email, a university spokesperson said Brown is no longer chair of the Arabic and Islamic Studies Department. But the spokesperson didn’t say why or whether he violated any policy.

    “He retains his faculty appointment,” including his named chair position, the spokesperson wrote.

    In a statement the day after Brown’s alleged post, the university said, “We are appalled that a faculty member would call for a ‘symbolic strike’ on a military base in a social media post.”

    “The faculty member has since deleted the post and stated that he would not want any harm to befall American servicemembers,” the statement said. “We are reviewing this matter to see if further action is warranted. We take our community’s concerns seriously and condemn language which is deeply inconsistent with Georgetown University’s values.”

    In response to a request for an interview and written questions, Brown told Inside Higher Ed in an email, “I am unable to make any public comments at this time.” He previously told Fox News Digital he was “calling for de-escalation” in his post, likening it to the strikes Iran ordered after an American drone strike killed Gen. Qassim Suleimani during Trump’s first term, “with telegraphed warning and no American casualties and no one felt any further need for attacks.”

    In a statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said that “to frame Dr. Brown’s comment as unpatriotic or violent, as some have done, requires a willful misreading of his intent and of the broader context of the brief U.S.-Iran war.”

    “Hoping for a swift end to the war was the clear intent of his message, it was a sentiment shared by many Americans, and it is what ultimately happened: Iran launched a telegraphed strike on a U.S. military base that harmed no one, President Trump declined to respond, and the war ended,” the statement said.

    For Afinogenov, the incident bodes ill for faculty rights.

    “This procedure of hauling members of university administrations before” a “congressional kangaroo court” harms academic freedom, he said. Administrators should push back against these “smear campaigns,” and Georgetown should articulate a policy to protect faculty and other members of the university community from retaliation for their “extramural speech,” such as on social media, he said.

    Over all, Afinogenov said, Brown’s situation is part of an “attack on academic freedom and the independence of universities in general, which we’re seeing across the country.”

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  • How Senate Republicans Want to Hold Colleges Accountable

    How Senate Republicans Want to Hold Colleges Accountable

    More than a week after the Senate education committee released its draft plan to overhaul the federal student aid system, higher education leaders across the sector are still breathing a sigh of relief over key provisions concerning how to hold colleges accountable for student outcomes.

    The high chamber’s proposal, which ties a university’s access to federal loans to how much their students earn after graduation, is simpler and more productive than the House proposal, known as risk-sharing, which would require colleges to pay an annual penalty based on their students’ outstanding loan balances, they say.

    “More than any other factor, a program having low earnings is the thing that is most connected with the prevalence of students defaulting or struggling to pay down their loans,” said Jordan Matsudaira, director of the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University. “This is a serious and sensible proposal to establish what I think of as a very necessary accountability in the higher education space.”

    The Senate plan seems to be based on an existing regulation known as gainful employment, which uses students’ earnings and debt to measure whether for-profit and non-degree programs adequately prepare their students for the workforce. But Republicans who sponsored the bill and expanded its reach to all degree programs have been wary of drawing attention to the overlap, as lawmakers have avoided calling it anything like “gainful employment 2.0” or “gainful for all.”

    Republicans have historically opposed the Democratic policy, which was first put in place during the Obama administration, saying it unfairly targeted for-profit programs and that a free market would be the best way to regulate the quality of academic programs. (The first Trump administration rescinded the policy, and then the Biden administration enacted a stricter version that remains in place today.)

    But now, as congressional Republicans grow increasingly concerned about student debt and skeptical of higher education, some have started to change their tune.

    Some say the Senate’s proposed earnings test is likely to succeed and become law, as it’s the lesser of two evils and aligns more with a conservative federalist ideology when compared to the House’s plan. But others view this new accountability measure as just that—new.

    “They’re not looking at the Biden gainful-employment rules and saying, ‘Oh, this was a good thing. Let’s do it like they did.’ They’re taking a different approach,” said Jason Altmire, president of Career Education Colleges and Universities, the national trade association representing for-profit institutions, which criticized the Biden regulations. He also noted that including all types of colleges is “a huge difference from the way the two last Democratic administrations approached gainful employment.”

    Either way, the provision is now up for consideration as part of a broader legislative package—the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—that would cut spending in order to finance Trump’s tax cuts and immigration policies. The House bill passed by a one-vote margin last month; now, senators are aiming to pass their version by July 4.

    Since lawmakers are using a process known as reconciliation, they only need 51 votes to pass the bill in the Senate, down from the typical 60 votes. But it also means the legislation has to adhere to a specific set of rules.

    Some policy experts question whether the Senate’s accountability measure for colleges will pass the sniff test. If it does, they expect the proposal to be included in the final bill.

    How Does It Work?

    The crux of the Senate’s accountability measure is tracking the median earnings of students program by program and comparing them to the average earnings of adults ages 25 to 34 with only a high school diploma. If students don’t earn more than adults without a college degree for two out of three consecutive years, then the program would lose access to federal loans for at least two years.

    Earnings for baccalaureate degree programs will be measured four years after a student leaves the program regardless of age—a time frame that some experts say is too short to truly gauge a program’s value. Meanwhile, the median income of high school graduates would not be evaluated until they hit at least 25 years old, or seven years after the typical high school graduation. Some higher ed lobbyists say that comparison isn’t fair.

    “You’re comparing a 23-year-old, let’s say, cosmetology graduate just getting started with her book of business to a 34-year-old flight attendant who’s been on the job for 16 years who only has a high school diploma,” Altmire said.

    A similar process would be used for graduate and professional programs, except the income level would be compared to adults with a bachelor’s degree and earnings will be evaluated further out from when the student left the program.

    The Senate hasn’t released any data on its plan, but studies on the Biden gainful-employment rule offer some insights into which types of college programs could be affected most.

    Data collected by the Department of Education in 2022 showed that about 1.3 percent of programs not currently subject to gainful employment would fail. About half of the programs failed because of the earnings test, according to an Inside Higher Ed analysis of department data.

    Other studies show that of those programs, the ones most impacted will likely be graduate studies and for-profit bachelor’s degrees. For example, about 20 percent of students in each of these sectors failed the Biden earnings test, said Matsudaira, who worked for the Department of Education during the Biden administration and is very familiar with gainful employment. That’s compared to only about 4 percent of nonprofit bachelor programs.

    Altmire, from CECU, however, disagreed. He pointed to a 2023 study conducted by Monroe College, a for-profit institution, which showed that nearly 90 percent of the undergraduate degree programs that would fail the earnings test are at public and private nonprofit colleges.

    But just because more nonprofit colleges fail doesn’t mean they have a high rate of failure proportionally, Matsudaira responded.

    “About 90 percent of enrollment is in the nonprofit sector, and only 10 percent of enrollment is in the for-profit sector, so of course, that should tilt in the direction of the nonprofit sector,” he said. “I would think about it a little bit more within each one of those sectors.”

    A Fairer Gainful?

    The Senate plan does keep the current gainful-employment rules in place while House Republicans want to repeal them. The Trump administration is currently defending the regulations in federal court, but a judge could throw them out.

    Still, policy experts cautioned against thinking of the Senate proposal as an add-on to Biden’s version of gainful employment.

    “I think it would be inaccurate to say the Senate took the Biden gainful-employment rules and tinkered around the edges,” Altmire said. “They took one concept from the Biden rules but then did a lot of other things that greatly improved that concept and made it more fair across all schools.”

    Beyond covering all degree programs, the Senate plan doesn’t specifically include credential programs, which currently fall under gainful employment. That’s a change that some experts say is a mistake, especially when the Senate is looking to expand the Pell Grant to cover some of these credentials. However, that plan comes with its own guardrails.

    “Certificates, beyond any other type of program, are most typified by extremely low earnings, and having those low earnings leads to a lot of loan defaults over all. So the fact that the Senate proposal ignores the certificate space altogether is baffling,” Matsudaira said.

    The Senate also changed the test itself. This version only measures a student’s earnings, while the Biden rule measures both income and whether students can pay off their loans. Furthermore, the Senate’s calculation includes all program enrollees, regardless of whether they completed their degree. The current gainful-employment regulations only count completers.

    Of these changes, the most debated has been whether to include in the earnings calculation students who stopped out before completing their degrees.

    Some policy experts argue that it’s fair to hold colleges accountable only for the earnings of students who complete their degree programs. If the goal is also to increase degree completion, that’s great, they say, but it should be handled through a separate provision than the one focused on return on investment.

    “If the goal is to actually measure the ROI, we should be looking specifically at those who earned a degree,” said Craig Lindwarm, senior vice president for governmental affairs at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. “There are a lot of other ways of supporting efforts to boost college completion, like investment in the Postsecondary Student Success Grant program.”

    But others say it is entirely fair.

    “You shouldn’t be rewarded when a student chooses your school, takes a bunch of financial aid, doesn’t complete the program,” said Altmire from CECU. “That makes no sense.”

    That said, higher education leaders from all sectors of the industry are generally pleased with the proposal and say it shows that the Senate has been listening to their concerns.

    “We’re encouraged that the Senate is heading down a more productive path,” one collegiate lobbyist said. “This is a much fairer, simpler and [more] effective approach to accountability.”

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  • What’s in House Republicans’ Risk-Sharing Plan?

    What’s in House Republicans’ Risk-Sharing Plan?

    Under a new accountability measure recently proposed as part of a larger House budget bill, colleges would have to pay millions of dollars each year to reimburse the government for their students’ unpaid loans.

    The plan builds on an idea—known as risk-sharing—that lawmakers and policy analysts have been toying with since at least 2015. As the federal student loan portfolio grew, the goal was to require colleges to have some skin in the game and incentivize them to improve student outcomes.

    And while the concept has gained some bipartisan support in theory, higher education institutions have repeatedly argued that it is difficult to create a fair accountability system when many of the variables involved are out of an institution’s control and depend on the decisions of individual students and borrowers.

    So far, the higher ed lobby has successfully defeated proposed risk-sharing plans such as the one included in a Republican bill from the last Congress, known as the College Cost Reduction Act. But now, an almost identical proposal is back and at the heart of House Republicans’ plan to cut at least $330 billion from higher education programs over the next 10 years. The overall legislation, which aims to cut $1.5 trillion from the budget, could receive a vote on the House floor this week, though some lawmakers have threatened to block the measure amid concerns that it doesn’t include deeper cuts. Even if the bill fails, it serves as a marker of what House Republicans hope to accomplish moving forward.

    Many higher education policy experts warn that practically speaking, the latest risk-sharing plan relies on a complicated formula that’s essentially a black box. Released in late April, the proposal has not been tested enough to know its ramifications, they say, and the limited data available is inconclusive. Some analyses released by conservative groups say the program will be a financial boost for efficient public institutions and penalize bloated private ones. But one study conducted by a lobbying group suggests that public regional and minority-serving institutions that serve high populations of low-income students will get hit the hardest.

    “Fundamentally it’s an astonishing level of federal overreach to essentially lump in all institutions of higher education together—public, private, for-profit—and run a convoluted formula to determine winners and losers at the federal level and then redistribute funding,” said Craig Lindwarm, senior vice president of government affairs for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

    Democratic politicians also argue that the purpose of the legislation is not truly to hold colleges accountable for student outcomes like graduation rates and income levels, but to crack down on what the government considers overly liberal institutions and fund President Donald Trump’s priorities.

    Even some conservative supporters acknowledge that it’s difficult to know the full scope of the bill’s potential impact this early. But they say risk-sharing is a necessary tool to penalize colleges that provide a poor return on investment and ensure the production of a well-prepared, financially stable workforce. They also suggest that the incentives such as additional grant funding to institutions that keep costs low and graduation rates high will offset the penalty for most public institutions.

    “With any policy change, we’re not going to be able to predict in advance 100 percent of how this is going to affect everyone, everywhere, all the time. But I don’t think that should be an excuse to not make policy changes,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. “I still think the data we have gives us a general idea of which sorts of institutions would be affected and the magnitudes of the penalties involved.”

    So How Does It Work?

    The proposed risk-sharing plan would kick in for new loans starting in July 2027, said an aide for Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. That means colleges wouldn’t be penalized for disruptions to the student loan system that occurred during the pandemic or efforts during the Biden and Trump administrations to overhaul repayment.

    If we don’t even understand how this works, why the heck are we passing it? I mean, it’s a concept, but I don’t think it’s the concept that people think it is.”

    Jason Delisle, nonresident senior fellow at the Urban Institute

    And because borrowers don’t have to start paying back their loans until six months after they graduate or stop out, institutions likely won’t have to pay a penalty until 2029 or 2030 at the earliest, the aide added.

    But from then on, institutional payments would be calculated annually—major by major—for each new cohort of borrowers and would continue until they’ve paid off their loans. The amount per cohort could change from year to year, depending on factors such as borrower behavior, postgraduation earnings and college costs. But it’s expected to grow as more and more cohorts are added to the lump sum.

    Under the bill, the amount per cohort would be calculated using a three-part formula, which is largely unchanged from what Republicans proposed last Congress in the CCRA.

    The first step is to determine a college’s risk-sharing liability, which is how much each institution owes the government. To do that, the formula looks at the difference between how much students were supposed to repay during a given year and how much they actually did. The calculation takes into account the value of any missed or partial payments as well as any interest that the government waived or principal contributions it matched, the committee aide said. It does not, however, include debt waived through programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was a concern for institutions.

    This is the part of the formula that raises the most questions for institutions, as the mechanics of exactly how the risk-sharing liability is calculated are not clearly outlined in the legislation or in a CCRA database published by the education committee Republicans in 2024. And even if it were, much of the data needed to run the formula is not publicly accessible.

    “How the formula works is the million-dollar question, and something that we’ve been trying to work on for a year and a half,” one policy expert said. “It’s very complicated and relies on metrics that aren’t publicly available.”

    House committee aides counter that colleges have access to student borrower data via the National Student Loan Data System, which can be used to predict future risk-sharing payments. They also point to a recent Dear Colleague letter reminding colleges of their responsibility to monitor borrower payments.

    But even then, higher ed lobbyists say, it’s not clear who will be responsible for calculating the liability. If any part of that responsibility falls to campus financial aid administrators, higher ed groups say the plan will increase the administrative burden on colleges.

    “If I were a lobbyist, I would just say to all of my members, go to your congressman and say, ‘We don’t know what this does,’” said Jason Delisle, a policy analyst who has worked at think tanks across the political spectrum but is now based at Urban Institute where he’s a nonresident senior fellow. “If we don’t even understand how this works, why the heck are we passing it? I mean, it’s a concept, but I don’t think it’s the concept that people think it is.”

    Incentives to Lower Costs

    Once that risk-sharing liability is known, the next step in the formula is to figure out how much of that liability fee a college will have to pay. That’s done using what the legislation calls an earning-price ratio, which compares students’ earnings to the federal poverty line and college cost. A higher EPR means a lower final payment. For example, if an institution’s EPR is 0.3, or 30 percent, then it has to pay 70 percent of the original liability.

    To further offset the risk-sharing penalty, colleges can also qualify for a new pot of funding proposed in the bill called the PROMISE Grant, which is the third step of the formula. How much a college would get in PROMISE funding depends on the total value of Pell Grants received and the graduation rate of Pell-eligible students. This grant is funded by other colleges’ risk-sharing payments.

    Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, is leading the effort to cut billions from higher education programs.

    Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

    So, according to data from the House committee, the State Technical College of Missouri should get $3,230,130.50 in PROMISE grants. But the community college would have to pay $9,688, bringing its net gain down to $3,220,442.50. Washington University in St. Louis, however, would receive no PROMISE Grant funding and lose about $3.5 million. (The House Committee data only lists the final risk-sharing payment—not original liability values or EPRs.)

    In theory, this data demonstrates how the EPR and the PROMISE Grant are supposed to support colleges that serve low-income students, but many higher ed lobbyists are worried the program will actually do the opposite. That’s largely because colleges can only receive a PROMISE Grant if they agree to lock in tuition rates for each new freshman class. If they can keep tuition costs low, then their EPR scores will only be strong. Some lobbyists say that neither is a feasible option for public colleges and minority-serving institutions, which rely heavily on funding from the state.

    “It’s not a coincidence that some of our schools that would get hit the hardest are in states that invest very little in public higher education. Some of our schools in Pennsylvania and Arizona, for example, would fare extremely poorly, and it’s by and large because tuition levels are such a determinative component as it relates to the penalty assessment,” said MacGregor Obergfell, director of governmental affairs at APLU. “To think of what traditional conservative orthodoxy is, it seems pretty unusual that a conservative position is using the federal government to punish state institutions for decisions made by their states.”

    Reward or Penalty?

    Some higher ed groups also noted that much of the formula either depends on or fails to acknowledge factors outside of a college’s control. Much of this has to do with unpredictable borrower behavior, but there are other factors at play, too; for example, when calculating discounts with the EPR, the formula doesn’t account for differences in the cost of living from college to college.

    “Institutions in higher-cost areas are at more of a disadvantage than other institutions,” said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “They have to charge higher prices to reflect higher costs of labor, maintaining facilities and all those types of things.”

    The burden of risk-sharing payments may be so high that colleges elect to opt out of the federal student loans program entirely, she added: “Ultimately it would have an impact on lower-income students who have a need both for a Pell Grant and a direct loan to help them meet their cost of attendance.”

    Of colleges that enrolled 70 percent or more low-income, Pell-eligible students, 96 percent would have to pay a risk-sharing penalty and 91 percent would lose money over all when PROMISE Grant is factored in, according to the American Council on Education’s analysis of the House data.

    The committee countered that finding with its own analysis of the data, sent to Inside Higher Ed, showing how colleges that enroll the highest share of low-income students should see about $99 more per student, while those that enroll the lowest share would lose about $66 per student.

    The ACE analysis as well as the committee’s data are among the few studies that show the estimated impact of the previously proposed risk-sharing plan. None have been updated yet to reflect the latest iteration.

    Another analysis from Cooper, the AEI fellow, estimated that public institutions as a whole should get more money under the plan, but private nonprofits are expected to face a substantial penalty.

    Although critics point to how the plan would affect individual institutions, particularly small, underresourced schools, proponents argue that the focus should be on the impact to higher education over all, and that colleges can lower their costs to see a payoff.

    “Because the net gains are significantly larger, the sector as a whole sees a net gain even though more institutions have net losses,” Cooper said. “So, the upside for institutions here is that there are significant rewards available to those which can improve their outcomes.”

    At the end of the day, it’s all about how you choose to look at the data.

    “I would just like to see [the formula of risk-sharing] play out for a couple of hypothetical colleges based on data that has some bearing on reality,” said Delisle from Urban Institute. “And that’s a hard thing to come by right now.”

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  • House Republicans Propose Significant Endowment Tax Increase

    House Republicans Propose Significant Endowment Tax Increase

    Efforts to raise endowment taxes are in motion as the House Ways and Means Committee reportedly plans to unveil changes next week that will increase rates and include more colleges.

    Education leaders have worried about such a rate increase for months. Now the GOP-led committee is expected to propose raising endowment excise taxes from 1.4 percent to up to 21 percent, depending on endowment value per student, Punchbowl News, Politico and other outlets reported. 

    The proposed endowment tax would only apply to private institutions, as it does currently.

    Under the proposed formula, institutions with endowments of $750,000 to $1.25 million per student would reportedly be hit with 7 percent excise tax. That number would climb to a 14 percent tax for colleges with endowments valued at $1.25 to $2 million per student. Colleges at the highest level with endowments of $2 million or more per student would pay 21 percent. (Currently, colleges with endowments worth $500,000 per student or more pay the 1.4 percent tax.)

    The specifics of the tax increase aren’t final and could shift before the committee’s hearing Tuesday.

    Republicans are preparing to move forward with endowment tax increases as part of a broader effort known as reconciliation to cut billions in federal spending and pay for President Donald Trump’s priorities. Other House committees have unveiled their proposed cuts for reconciliation, including a sweeping plan to upend the student loan system, but the Ways and Means bill is crucial to this process.

    GOP motivations for the tax increase appear to be twofold in that it would help fund tax cuts and serve as a punitive measure for colleges they believe have gone “woke.” In 2023, a total of 56 universities paid roughly $380 million in endowment excise taxes.

    “Seven years ago, the Trump tax cuts sparked an economic boom and provided needed relief to working families,” committee chairman Rep. Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, said in a Friday statement. “Pro-family, pro-worker tax provisions are the heart of President Trump’s economic agenda that puts working families ahead of Washington and will create jobs, grow wages and investment, and help usher in a new golden age of prosperity. Ways and Means Republicans have spent two years preparing for this moment, and we will deliver for the American people.”

    The proposal comes amid the president’s full blown attack on higher education, which has seen the federal government clamp down on research funding, go after colleges for alleged antisemitism, take aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and attempt to deport international students.

    Since the 1.4 percent endowment excise tax was passed in 2017 during the first Trump administration higher education leaders have long worried that the president would raise it in his second term. 

    As universities increased their lobbying efforts in the early days of Trump 2.0, the potential increase to the endowment tax has been a key concern. Recent lobbying reports show that Harvard University, which has the largest endowment, recently valued at more than $53 billion, Princeton University, Northwestern University, and multiple others, have pressed Congress on the issue. (Northwestern’s chief investment officer said last week that the potential increase would be “destructive.”)

    Smaller institutions, some of which had never hired federal lobbyists before 2025, have also raised concerns about how expanding the endowment tax would harm their educational mission.

    According to an analysis from James Murphy, director of career pathways and post-secondary policy at Education Reform Now, only three universities would pay the highest rate at 21 percent – Princeton, Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another 10 universities, including Harvard, would get hit with the 14 percent rate.

    An analysis published last month by the investment firm Hirtle Callaghan noted that recently proposed changes to the endowment excise tax would “significantly broaden the universe of colleges and universities that pay the tax from large, wealthy institutions to smaller, regional ones.” That analysis warned that such increases “threaten to do irreparable damage to many schools which are significantly weaker financially than the schools paying the current tax.”

    Multiple higher education associations have previously expressed opposition to the increase. 

    Last fall, American Council on Education president Ted Mitchell sent a letter to Congress, co-signed by 19 other associations, calling for the repeal of the existing endowment tax, arguing that “this tax undermines the teaching and research missions of the affected institutions without doing anything to lower the cost of college, enhance access, or address student indebtedness.”

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  • Senate Republicans Spotlight Campus Antisemitism at Hearing

    Senate Republicans Spotlight Campus Antisemitism at Hearing

    Nearly a year after pro-Palestinian encampments sprang up on college campuses across the country—and with them, increased reports of antisemitism—Senate Republicans are saying university leaders need to crack down on campus conduct or be placed “on notice.”

    Although the House Republicans have spent more than a year investigating campus antisemitism, the hearing, held Thursday on Capitol Hill, was the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s first strike at the issue since it became a top priority after Oct. 7, 2023.

    The two-hour discussion didn’t break much new ground, aside from giving members of the GOP a chance to highlight the changes President Trump has made since taking office and to promote several related pieces of legislation. Democrats largely used their time to criticize the Trump administration and the plan to shut down the Education Department.

    Last Congress, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held multiple hearings, blaming diversity, equity and inclusion for what they saw as “the scourge of antisemitism on campus.” They grilled the presidents of elite institutions, subpoenaed universities for documents and lambasted higher ed over all for its handling of protests. Ultimately, they concluded that university leaders made “shocking concessions” to protesters; intentionally declined to support Jewish students, faculty and staff; and failed to impose meaningful discipline, among other findings.

    But up until this year, Republicans had limited options to enact legislation that they say would address campus antisemitism. Up until the start of the year, Democrats controlled the Senate and the White House. That meant that no matter what acts of alleged discrimination the committee tried to highlight or what bills it tried to pass, their efforts were almost always dead in the water. But now, with Donald Trump as president and Republicans controlling the House and Senate, the HELP Committee chair, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and his fellow Republicans hold the power. And they were sure to make it known.

    “With President Trump in office and a Republican majority in Congress, the time of failed leadership is over,” Cassidy said in his opening remarks. “Universities have been put on notice: Failing to protect a student’s civil rights will no longer be tolerated.”

    Cassidy and multiple of his Republican counterparts promoted the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would require colleges to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism when conducting civil rights investigations. He also pushed the Protecting Students on Campus Act, which would require institutions to provide students with information about how to file an antisemitism complaint. (Cassidy is lead sponsor of the Protecting Students on Campus Act.)

    The witnesses who testified Thursday included rabbis, researchers and Jewish student advocates. As was the case with the hearing over all, they largely echoed comments about campus antisemitism made at previous hearings. The three speakers selected by Republicans believed that the protests were not driven by students but faculty members and outside forces who were trying to demonize the definition of Zionist. The two selected by Democrats said colleges must focus on maintaining free speech while responding to antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.

    Meanwhile, lawmakers from both parties wanted to talk about the actions of President Trump since he took office in January.

    Republicans praised his decision to strip Columbia University of $400 million in federal funding, saying it was high time to hold the Ivy League institution—an epicenter of campus protests—accountable. (Columbia said last week that it agreed to sweeping demands from the Trump administration, though the funds haven’t been restored.)

    The Department of Education has also sent out letters warning more than 60 colleges and universities that they could be the next to face “potential enforcement actions” if they don’t comply with civil rights laws and crack down on antisemitism.

    “The days of a tepid response or toothless resolution agreements are over,” said Sen. Ashley Moody, a Florida Republican. “Universities have now been put on notice, and I don’t think there’s any question that there’s been a change in the tenor on how we will protect the rights of Jewish students on our campus.”

    The conservatives also used the hearing as a chance to tie allegedly antisemitic protests to concerns about foreign influence on higher education and promote legislation that increases federal oversight of foreign gifts and student visas. On Thursday, the House passed a bill that would increase disclosure requirements for foreign gifts and contracts.

    Republicans embraced a report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, which found that American colleges and universities have received more than $3 billion in unreported gifts from Qatar. According to the report, colleges that received undocumented gifts saw a significant increase in incidents of antisemitism compared to those that did not. The report argues, essentially, that the gifts are a use of “soft power” to encourage antisemitic views on campus.

    Charles Small, founding director and president of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, was one of the witnesses at the hearing, and he urged lawmakers to increase their oversight of what gifts are allowed.

    “I don’t think it’s wrong to question foreign funding in universities and colleges and whether foreign nations are trying to persuade or influence or brainwash our children. Do you think that they want us to be more pro-American … is that why they’re giving hundreds of millions of dollars to our universities?” Moody said.

    But Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, defended the gifts, saying Qatar played a critical role in the release of Americans held hostage by Hamas.

    Democrats, on the other hand, repeatedly argued that rather than working to combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, President Trump and Secretary McMahon are making the problem worse by seeking to close the Department of Education and slashing its capacity. McMahon recently laid off half of the staff at the Office for Civil Rights and closed many regional offices—a move that experts said will only worsen the agency’s backlog of complaints and reduce enforcement.

    Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington State, said OCR is America’s front line of defense against discrimination. So if the goal is to combat antisemitism, there should be more support and resources distributed to the OCR, not less, she added.

    “It’s like saying if you want to fight fires, you should support the fire department. Well, I hate to tell you all, Trump is axing the fire department,” she said. “It’s as straightforward as it gets.”

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  • Arizona Republicans Want Chaplains to be in Public Schools – The 74

    Arizona Republicans Want Chaplains to be in Public Schools – The 74


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    Republican politicians who accuse public school teachers of indoctrinating students with a “woke agenda” are pushing to bring religious chaplains into the same schools to provide counseling to students.

    “I think Jesus is a lot better than a psychologist,” Rep. David Marshall, R-Snowflake, said during a March 11 meeting of the Arizona House of Representatives’ Education Committee.

    Marshall said that he’s been a chaplain who provides counseling for 26 years.

    Senate Bill 1269, sponsored by Flagstaff Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers, was modeled after similar legislation passed in recent years in Texas and Florida.

    The proposal would give school districts the option of allowing volunteer religious chaplains to provide counseling and programs to public school students. Districts that decide to allow chaplains would be required to provide to parents a list of the volunteer chaplains at each school and their religious affiliation, and parents would be required to give permission for their child to receive support from a chaplain.

    Despite ample concerns that the proposal violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and that it would open up schools to legal liability for any bad mental health advice a chaplain might provide, the bill has already passed through the Senate on a party-line vote. The House Education Committee also approved it along party lines.

    Rogers told the Education Committee that the existence of any requirement for the separation of church and state in U.S. law “was a myth,” adding that she sees no harm in bringing religion into public schools.

    Rogers, a far-right extremist, has embraced white nationalism, and in 2022 spoke at a white nationalist conference, calling the attendees “patriots” and advocating for the murder of her political enemies.

    She has also said she is “honored” to be endorsed by a prominent antisemitic Christian nationalist and regularly trafficks in antisemitic tropes. And Rogers has advocated racist theories, appeared on antisemitic news programs and aligned herself with violent anti-government extremists.

    Democrats on the committee raised the alarm that Rogers’ bill would violate the Establishment Clause by allowing chaplains with religious affiliations to counsel students, while not providing the same kinds of services to students who don’t follow a religion or who follow a less-common religion with no chaplains available to the school.

    An amendment to the bill, proposed by committee Chairman Matt Gress, a Phoenix Republican, requires that the chaplains be authorized to conduct religious activities by a religious group that believes in a supernatural being. The amendment would also allow a volunteer chaplain to be denied from the list if the school’s principal believes their counsel would be contrary to the school’s teachings.

    Both of these changes would allow districts to exclude chaplains from The Satanic Temple of Arizona, a group that doesn’t believe in a higher power but promotes empathy and has chapters across the country that challenge the intertwining of Christianity and government.

    Oliver Spires, a minister with The Satanic Temple of Arizona, voiced his opposition to Rogers’ bill during a Feb. 5 Senate Education Committee meeting.

    The legislation, Spires said, would disproportionately impact students from minority religions who see Christian chaplains providing support to their peers while no chaplains representing their religion are available.

    “If a district listed a Satanist on their chaplain list, would they have your support?” he asked the committee members.

    Gress’s amendment would preclude that.

    Gaelle Esposito, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, told committee members on Tuesday that school counselors are required to undergo specialized training to prepare them to help students — requirements that religious chaplains wouldn’t have to meet, even though they’d be providing similar services.

    “They will simply not be equipped to support students dealing with serious matters like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self harm or suicidal ideation,” Esposito said. “Religious training is not a substitute for academic and professional training in counseling, health care or mental health… Even with the best intentions, chaplains may provide inappropriate responses or interventions that could harm students.”

    But as Democrats on the House Education Committee argued that Arizona should provide more funding for trained counselors and social workers to help students with mental health issues, the Republicans on the panel said that students are actually struggling with mental health issues because they don’t have enough religion in their lives.

    “I’ve heard that there is a mental health crisis afflicting kids,” Gress, a former school board member, said. “Now, I don’t necessarily think in many of these cases that something is medically wrong with these kids. I think, perhaps, there is a spiritual deficit that needs to be addressed.”

    Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, said he’s been frustrated by the federal courts’ interpretation of the First Amendment to require the separation of church and state, claiming it has made the government hostile to religion instead of protecting it.

    “I heard comments here today that this is going to harm kids — harm kids by being exposed to religion? That is absolutely the opposite of what is happening here today in our society,” Olson said. “We have become a secular society, and that is damaging our society. We need to have opportunities for people to look to a higher power, and what better way than what is described here in this bill?”

    Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, of Tucson, called SB1269 “outrageous” and “incredibly inappropriate.”

    And Rep. Stephanie Simacek, of Phoenix, pointed out that the courts have repeatedly ruled against allowing religious leaders to be invited to share their faith with public school students. She described Rogers’ bill as indoctrination that gives preferential treatment to students who have religious beliefs over those who don’t

    “No one is saying that you may not go and celebrate your God, however you see fit,” Simacek, a former teacher and school board member, said. “But this is not the place, in public education, where our students go to learn math, reading and writing and history.”

    Florida’s school chaplain law, which went into effect last July and is similar to Rogers’ proposal, has received ample pushback from First Amendment advocacy groups, as well as some church groups who said that allowing untrained chaplains to provide mental health support to students would have unintended negative consequences.

    The option to bring chaplains into schools in Florida has not been particularly popular, with several large school districts deciding not to implement a program allowing them.

    Proposed legislation similar to SB 1269 has been introduced in red states across the country this year, including in Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Montana and North Dakota.

    The bill will next be considered by the full House of Representatives. If it passes the chamber, it will return to the Senate for a final vote before heading to Gov. Katie Hobbs.

    Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: [email protected].


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